It's known that The 3rd Birthday main character Aya Brea will slowly lose her clothes as she gets beaten up on the battle field. You could say that the amount of skin showing is an indication of Aya's damage.

It's also known that Aya's HP is determined by the soldier she's currently possessing. If she's on the verge of death -- that is, her HP is about to reach 0 -- you'll be able to make her Overdive to another soldier. The current soldier will likely die, but you'll have a full HP meter to work with.

So what happens to Aya's clothes as you switch from soldier near death to soldier full of life? Director Hajime Tabata answered this at the game's Twitter recently.

And the answer is: nothing. It turns out that Aya's clothing state has nothing to do with her current level of HP.

Aya's clothes actually tear up more and more not with general damage, but when she's "downed." I'm not sure what exactly Tabata means by "downed" (it could either mean death or that she takes so much damage that she falls to the ground). Regardless, her clothing doesn't just tear off as her HP goes down. Tabata notes that this wouldn't make much sense considering that her HP will recover when she jumps to another soldier.

The clothing damage system will be in place in the game's Tokyo Game Show build, although you won't be able to go into the config menu to set the camera to the "behind" view that was shown in the screenshot Tabata shared last week (pictured to the right).

Wrote Tabata, "For those who plan on playing the game at TGS, it's a valuable demo opportunity, so please don't just play in order to make Aya's clothes get destroyed."

Despite this request, Tabata provided some hints for how to make her clothes come off quickly. The trick is to use Aya's grenades on herself multiple times. With five blasts, her clothing will drop down one level.

"However," continued Tabata, "please play normally."

Tabata also provided a more practical tip about the demo. The game provides a green indicator arrow in the upper right of the screen showing where you should go. The arrow serves as a guide for not getting lost in the stage.

Try keeping your eyes on the arrow instead of on Aya, even if her clothes have torn off a bit.